Brian B. recently posted in another thread:"What's the music you've listened to with regularity over the long term?"Which made me think this would be an excellent topic of its own.

Necro, I know.

I have opinions on what some of my long-term favorites are. But I thought it would be interesting to see what iTunes has recorded as my most-played albums over the last two years since a lot of my listening in that time has been iPhone or iTunes mediated. (Yes, I can hear the sighs from CA all the way over here in IL. )

Here are the albums--in order--that I have listened to the most during the past two years. Each of them has been played over 200 times. Some of these would be on my "all time favorites" lists (e.g., I think I'm one of the few people in the world who actually thinks Midnight Moon was frigging amazing). Some of them I was surprised to see appearing (e.g., Absolutely Deep--an album I adore, but had no idea I had listened to it so much). Many of these are the kinds of albums that I'm likely to listen to on repeat; they fade into the background nicely when reading or writing.

Some of my self-nominated favorites, it turns out, have not been in heavy rotation in recent years despite the esteem in which I hold them (e.g., Roach's The Magnificent Void, Budd's The White Arcades, Rich/Alio Die's Fissures ). That's kind of interesting too.

The first two almost don't count because I use them to try to fall asleep at night. I think it shows more how much trouble I have sleeping than what my listening habits are(maybe the NSA knows). The rest do seem about right in terms of play, but I listen to a lot more stuff daily. I tend to needle-drop through my music. I had expected to see some artists much higher on the playlist. The computer has definitely altered how I listen to music over the years. When I buy a CD, I usually rip it right away, then listen to it on the 'phones.